Strasbourg, Oct. 5 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Former co-rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Ukraine (1995-2007) Hanne Severinsen has said that strict measures might be applied to Kyiv for failing to fulfill its obligations.
"Probably, we should have established tighter timeframes [for fulfillment of obligations by Ukraine] and not accept the kind of apologies that I have been accepting for so many years. You can take my old reports, change the date and you just get the same report. Something has to change," Severinsen said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine in Strasbourg.
Due to this, the former PACE member, who is working at the Danish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, said that the assembly might toughen its position on Ukraine.
"There is an opportunity to tell the Ukrainian delegation that we will deprive you of the right to vote. This can happen. What is more important, the [Ukrainian] parliament has to be ready to effectively amend the legislation, which has not been done for so many years," she said.
According to Severinsen, the Ukrainian justice minister will be invited for one of the next meetings of the monitoring committee to report on the facts reflected in the report on the persecution of the opposition drafted by the Danish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights.
The document was drafted by Mikhael Lyngbo, a former public prosecutor and deputy head of the security service of Denmark.
He analyzed the trials of the criminal cases against former Ukrainian Premier Yulia Tymoshenko, former Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko and former First Deputy Justice Minister Yevhen Korniychuk.
"When I read what he wrote, first of all, I should say this is the truth, what is more, the truth is even worse. Judges and lawyers are dependent. They just obey investigators who, in turn, feel like they extend the president’s power. One of the most important things in democracy is separation of power, when courts are independent. From what we can see, Ukraine does not have this," Severinsen said.
She added that a political decision of the former government had been criminalized in Ukraine.
"If this becomes a tradition, then each government will go to prison at the end of its term. That is why it is important that voters at the elections can say goodbye to one government and welcome the other. This is the basis of democracy," Severinsen said.
She added that the situation is "very bad" for Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
"He’s backed himself into the corner, and it is very important that he finds a way out of it," she added.
